


It's a Disaster (Until it's Not)

by lucyrinner



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Swan Secret Santa, Christmas, F/M, Holiday, Pre-Relationship, holiday fic, not quite an au but a different scenario, pure christmas fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucyrinner/pseuds/lucyrinner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe choosing her to run the ridiculous Christmas tree sale wasn't the worst idea in the world- and maybe he didn't buy one just for the free apple cider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Disaster (Until it's Not)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSassyWitchOfTheNortheast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSassyWitchOfTheNortheast/gifts).



> Happy holidays! This is my present for thesassywitchofthenortheast, my giftee in the Captain Swan secret santa exchange. It was so fun getting to know you, and I hope you have a very merry Christmas! Enjoy, friend!

“Date me.”

“Hook, I’m trying to finish my coffee.”

“You can date me and drink coffee.”

“Oh, can I? Had no idea,” she says, rolling her eyes, suppressing the smile about to show itself.

They’ve been playing this game for weeks now. He asks her, they spar, she pretends to think it’s an awful idea, and he slowly runs out of creative ways to ask her.

Today, he takes the direct approach.

“You need a refill, dear?” Granny asks, pot in hand. Emma shakes her head, draining her mug as the pirate stares apprehensively the light brown mixture, topped with whipped cream and little crushed pieces of candy cane.

She collects her stuff and hops off the stool, glancing at Killian with a little hope in her eyes. “I should probably get going. See you later?”

He nods and watches as she turns away, out the door and around the block.

It’s a highlight compared to the rest of her day.

 

* * *

 

“Belle would’ve been better at this,” she grumbles as she trudges through the thick snow, boots soaking through to her socks and hair getting matted from the wind.

It’s true, though. Belle’s way more liked, way more respected and a hell of a lot more easy to buy a Christmas tree from than Emma, the woman who until very recently didn’t even have a tree each year to call her own. Belle would spend hours crafting the perfect apple cider recipe and enlist some neighbors to help arrange the trees around the lot, maybe even get some business owners to sponsor, complete with a group of carol singers at the entrance.

Emma has none of that and a day left to put it all together, a charity event to save some bridge near town.  
So she tapes up the flier and plows through to the next block, taping up that one, and another near it, shivering in the wind.

 

* * *

 

As soon as the tree lot officially opens at seven o’clock in the morning, she gets one customer. Which, in her mind, is a great sign.

It’s a man she’s never met before, and he leaves in five minutes with one of the smallest, cheapest trees, and complains that the apple cider is too bitter.

So she smiles through it, waving goodbye through the negative temperatures, and waits for the next customer.

And waits.

And drinks way more apple cider than should be allowed.

“Dad, there’s _no one here_ ,” she whisper yells on her phone two hours later, the lot empty of customers but full of Douglas Firs.

“Well, Emma, it’s only eleven in the morning. You have plenty of time!”

“I’ve made thirty dollars. The open sign cost more than that.”

He stifles a laugh at that. “If all else fails, your mother and I always go buy a big one for the house, so that’s at least another sixty for you.”

“Oh, a whole ninety dollars. Really footing the bill of that old broken bridge,” she deadpans. “I’ll see you and Mary Margaret later?”

“We’ll be there, don’t worry. Go sell some trees, okay?"

She almost wants to beg them to come save her and her suffering cash register now, but she hangs up and sighs, putting her phone down on the table next to her and debating another glass of cider. At the rate she’s going, she’s glad she didn’t make egg nog instead- she might not have been able to stand by seven.

Hours pass, the temperature drops, and before Emma knows it, it’s getting darker with only fifty dollars more progress made.

“Does no one in Storybrooke need a _freaking christmas tree?”_

A laugh rings throughout the silence around her, and the sound of footsteps crunching through the snow gets closer.

Immediately, she jumps around, walking quickly through the throngs of branches to get to the entrance. _Okay, Emma, let’s do this._

She can sell an expensive tree to a stranger, right? Maybe one of the big ones, in the back, approaching triple digit prices? She can be charming. She can be Belle if the situation calls for it.

She gets to the front and plasters a smile on her face when she spots it.

It’s a leather jacket, and the figure wearing it has a shiny hook where the left hand should be, and all thoughts of hope fly out the window. He doesn’t even have an apartment here, just a boat in the dock where a tree wouldn’t exactly fit in.

But damn it, the town needs to buy a bridge.

“Killian, wait!”

He whips around and smiles, taking in her desperate expression and the sea of trees around her.

“Merry Christmas, Swan.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, I need you to do something kind of ridiculous for me.”

 

* * *

 

He claims he’s in it for the free cider. 

The walk along the line of trees, a sense of urgency in her step. “I don’t suppose you have any money on you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m drowning, here, okay? I have less than two hundred dollars and the sale ends in a few hours. Help a neighbor out?”

“I live on a boat. You know that, right? It’s docked and doesn’t exactly set the scene for a Christmas tree and tinsel.”

She sighs and stops, looking around at all the lights strung up along fences and tinsel strewn around.

“I shouldn’t even be doing this. I’m the sheriff, not the freaking charity coordinator! I should be catching criminals, or making a ginger-bread house with Henry, or-”

“Emma, I-”

“Belle would be turning people away at this point! Or David- he’d be great at this! He would be chatting and complimenting people’s ugly swesters! Even Regina, the actual _evil queen_ would be making more money than me.”

“You want to know what I think?”

She pauses for a second, breathing loudly in the quiet of the air. “What, Jones?”

He steps closer to her, one hand on her hip, each of his heavy exhales visible in the cold. “I think I’ll take that one,” he whispers, nodding his head toward the tree only a few feet away from him.

Emma smiles and nods. “Oh, that one’s expensive. Have enough money for that?”

“I think I can foot the bill. Besides, I didn’t come here for the cider, did I, love?” he whispers as he leans in, putting his lips on hers, and right when she responds, right when the spark ignites-

“Emma ! We’re here! Where are-”  Mary Margaret’s voice rings out, the sound of her boots coming to a stop right in front of Emma and Killian.

They jump apart, feet away from each other, as Killian stares at the ground.

David and Henry follow closely behind her, eyes wide. Mary Margaret still can’t speak, so David steps a little closer.

“Uh, Emma-”

“David, guys, I can explain, just give me a second?”

His mouth’s still a little open when she looks back to Killian, immediately noticing his change in mood. He doesn’t speak, only hands her a few bills quickly and looks around madly.

“Killian, wait!”

He walks to the front of the lot, not quite sure of what to say. Emma leaves her family and runs after him, catching up just before he opens the gate to the sidewalk.

She’s breathless, all words leaving her except to the dumbest sentence she could possiblely say in the moment.

“You, uh, forgot your tree.”

It could’ve been a plea to stay. It could’ve been a declaration of something major, maybe even a soft serenade could’ve been better.

He grabs the Charlie Brown tree she put in the front as a joke, a little decoration, and walks away, towards the docks, not even looking back.

The red on Emma’s cheeks definitely isn’t from the cold.

* * *

 

She’s thankful her family and her don’t have time to talk.

As soon as Emma had turned away from Killian’s rapidly shrinking figure, she stops dead in her tracks, noticing the hordes of people coming towards her. It looks like the angry mob’s come early this year.

But they approach, and the very first people that come up to her ask for some cider, and begin to look at trees. She knew David could spread the word better than she could, so a few hours later, with the help of her parents and a few other salespeople better than herself, she turns off the open sign and closes the gate behind her, no pirate or leather jackets in sight.

“Cash register’s full! Emma, you coming back?” David yells from the opposite direction.

Henry waves he over. “Yeah, mom, we have hot chocolate!”

She’s about to accept, to run back to her house with a fireplace and her family and maybe a few viewings of _It’s A Wonderful Life_ , maybe even decorate cookies.

It’s the night she planned on having. It’s the night she should probably have.

It’s the night she’ll have tomorrow, for sure.

So she smiles and turns away, feeling some weight lift off her shoulders. “I’ll see you guys later. Don’t wait up!”

Mary Margaret watches her daughter run across the street, towards her own little Christmas miracle, and drags David and Henry in the opposite direction with a grin on her face.

“Who’s up for _Elf_? I have a feeling Emma might be a while.”

* * *

 

She gets all the way to the harbor before she freezes.

Not from the actual cold, although it’s approaching negative numbers by this point, but from fear. And, of course, from the sheer impossibility of her actually stepping onto the Jolly Roger right now, which is barely docked near the edge of the concrete.

Thankfully, before she makes up her mind on which way to ungracefully jump onto the deck of the ship, she spots his face, illuminated by the water below, and she waves him over.

“You know, I don’t really feel like making the three foot wide jump!” she yells over to him with an awkward laugh, trying to avoid stumbling over her words like a sixteen year old with a crush.

Because she doesn’t you know, have a crush. Not like that. Not at all.

He nods without emotion and makes his way towards her, stepping on to dry land with a wary look at the blonde in front of him.

“Listen, Swan, we don’t have to do this right now,” he says, taking a breath.

“You kissed me.”

Killian laughs. “You weren’t exactly unenthused by it.”

“I didn’t mind it,” she says with a playful tone of voice.

“Emma,” he breathes. “I know I talk about it, and tease you, but it you don’t want this, or have this crazy idea that you owe me-”

“It’s not that,” she interrupts strongly. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t sure of what I wanted, okay?”

He nods like he still can’t quite believe it, and that just doesn’t do for Emma. She needs confirmation, action, and to pee from the hundred thousand gallons of cider she drank today.

So she grabs him by the waist and tugs him closer, grip tightening as she crashes her lips against his, fighting the sudden breathlessness feeling her lungs have. She lets him respond and he does so quickly, his hand finding her hips. Her fingers drift upward and tangle themselves in his hair when she breaks it off for a second, only centimeters from his face when she speaks.

She laughs quietly, feeling warmer next to him, despite the shiver that moves down her spine.

“So, tell me, how funny does that awful little tree look on your deck? Because I really can’t picture it.”

“Absolutely ridiculous, especially because the last few pine needles are hanging on for dear life, but I’m having trouble caring at the moment.”


End file.
